Trochilus Tales

Thursday, November 10, 2011

No one will likely catch much about the following in any New Jersey news or media coverage, but Rutgers University graduate James O'Keefe is at it again with his Project Veritas. His focus this time -- the political bias of news reporters, and a video example of out-and-out partisan bias of a reporter, posted on his YouTube channel, veritasvisuals (embed below).

On October 4th of this year, one of O'Keefe's staff attended a journalism event focusing on the Pulitzer Prize, and entitled, "HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT," which was held up at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. There he managed to catch reporter Amy Ellis Nutt, a very recent Pulitzer-Prize winner (the "Feature Writing Prize, 2010") for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey, enthusiastically sharing her political views with someone she apparently thought was a journalism student. The camera was rolling. Nutt can be heard voicing her agreement with the "student" that President Obama needs to be re-elected, and then she adds, in the context of their discussion of the Presidential race this coming year, a string of pejorative epithets, ones specifically aimed at Governor Chris Christie, calling him in turn an "ass,"an "asshole," a "bully," and a "liar."

So, armed with the fresh tape, O'Keefe first then went up to the Star-Ledger offices to ask editor Kevin Whitmer his reaction to the appropriateness of a reporter for his paper harboring such obvious partisan biases. Whitmer was not in his office and therefore did not meet with O'Keefe.

Then, James went over to New York and up to Morningside Heights to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, in order to try to meet with Amy Nutt herself. She is a teacher in that Graduate School. And, of course, when confronted with the information she vigorously objected to having been taped, at one point saying, "and so I absolutely have no comment to make to you." Having refused to meet with O'Keefe, she finally hung up the phone on him when he began asking about her expressed views on the need to reelect President Obama.

So, O'Keefe then walked around and spoke to some of her colleagues at the school, including reporters Jay Rosen and Dale Maharidge, who each in turn refused to comment on her openly partisan and disparaging comments.

Maharidge even sent O'Keefe and his group an email calling them "shitheads," citing a lengthy Facebook posting of his about them, and closing with, "Fuck you, man. Bring it on."

But save a chuckle for the short clip at the end . . . the one featuring Amy Nutt, up on the panel dais, pontificating as she spoke to the group of students, telling them that pursuit is important, saying:

"It taught me how important is is to keep asking the same questions, 'cause you get more information."

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Republican lawmakers and conservative activists are expressing outrage after the Obama administration announced its objection to adding President Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.. . .Roosevelt asked the nation to join him in prayer as U.S. and allied troops launched the invasion that led to the defeat of Nazi Germany. He asked God to give the allied troops courage and faith, saying, "With thy blessing we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy."

"It is not a judgment as to the merit of this new commemoration, simply that altering the Memorial in this way, as proposed in HR 2070, will necessarily dilute this elegant memorial's central message and its ability to clearly convey that message to move, educate, and inspire its many visitors," Abbey said in written testimony.. . .

Apparently President Roosevelt didn't think that player would "dilute" the message at the time. Otherwise, why would he have offered it to the entire nation -- in wartime, no less?

This is supposed to be a memorial to what actually happened . . . not a commemoration of our subsequent silent surrender to political correctness!

Typical . . . next I suppose someone from the Obama Administration will be suggesting that carefully placed dabs of Liquid Paper ™ be painted over certain key words and phrases in publicly displayed historical documents -- to wit:

• "and Nature's God" ...

• "by their Creator" ...

• ", appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions," and,

" ... It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?>"